


twin stars (twin souls, you and i)

by EllaYuki



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Hopeful Ending, Leia POV, Light Angst, TLJ Compliant, The Last Jedi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 19:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17648483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaYuki/pseuds/EllaYuki
Summary: She’s never blamed Luke for what happened to Ben, and she’s missed him more than she knows, and when he appears before her at the end of all things, hope sparks in her heart once more.





	twin stars (twin souls, you and i)

The day after she feels her son’s descent into the Dark Side of the Force is the last time she sees her brother in the flesh. It’s the last time in oh,  _so many years_  she sees him  _at all_ , the last time she senses him until the day he dies.

Guilt rolls off of him and the despair and the heartbreak in his eyes are almost a match for her own, and Leia does not blame him, even when he tells her what happened to cause Ben’s fall.

(She knows it’s not his fault, she knows who really swayed her son to the darkness, she knows…  _well_. She knows.)

That day, he hugs her tight, almost painfully so, clings for a long time, whispering “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry”s over and over again and Leia knows with absolute certainty that this will be the very last time she’ll ever get to hold her brother in her arms. It pains her just as much as losing Ben.

(Losing Han, the first time around, is a whole different kind of awful. Losing him again, just as she got him back? It takes all her strength just to keep breathing.)

She regains a bit of hope, when all seems lost, as he once again appears before her eyes, sad eyes, and sad smile, and apology once again on his lips. His words, once they get past the initial awkwardness, spark something in her old, tired heart, and she realizes how much she’s missed his eyes, his voice, his presence in the back of her mind.

(She thought she’d felt him earlier, just before waking up from her coma, but for a while there, she’d just assumed it had been wishful thinking on her part, a part of her wounded soul crying out for its twin one last time. She knows better now.)

She knows he’s not really there in front of her, she knows he’s just a projection (she knows what it’ll mean for him), can feel it just as she can feel her son’s presence on the planet, just a few miles away and coming ever closer. It doesn’t stop the knot in her breast from unraveling at just the sight of him, even as she knows that, and even as she knows this is the last time. She can tell when something means goodbye, even when it’s not outright said.

It’s difficult to watch the confrontation, so she doesn’t, distracts herself from it with the evacuation of the handful of people that’re left of the Resistance. She tries not to let her thoughts linger, forces herself further and further away from her brother and her child, but every one of her senses are in tune with them.

It’s how she feels the moment Luke’s projection vanishes from Crait’s surface.

It’s how she feels the moment her brother passes on, enveloped in the dying light of setting suns, at peace.

(It hurts. Her soul feels splintered, torn in two. 

Yet somehow, even so, she, too, is at peace. Has hope.)

She doesn’t look out the window as they leave the planet behind.

 


End file.
